Mahima Mehra - Haathi Chaap

Elephant’s poo – A passionate business

opportunity for a lady

Monday 11, January 2013Est. 1869 Priceless

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fcdcdcd.SUCCESS STORIES OF GUTSY & PASSIONATE ENTREPRENEURS OF INDIAThe Young guns OF

INDIAMahima Mehra

Presented to Professor Anay Mashruwala

Presented by:Abhilasha Babbar A03

Sunny Bohra A08Milan Dave A14Lipi Gandhi A17

Sweety Hirpara A19Ankit Joshi A24

Keyur Khattar A25Manisha Ramrakhyani A35

Megha Shah A47Pooja Shah A48

Mahima Mehra, born and brought up in Jaipur, did her graduation in Psycology from Lady Sriram College in Delhi.

Her family business was diamonds and jewellery. She always wanted to do something in Recycling.

Joined an organization named Jan Seva Ashram hoping to get into vermi-composting but instead was assigned to hand made paper division.

She enjoyed her work because her passion for recycling was satisfied here, but didn’t want to work in an NGO.





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She quit Jan Seva Ashram after 7 months in 1995 and started Paperterie with a capital investment of Rs. 16,000 .

After one and a half year, she met Bernd Merzenich at the Indo German Export Promotion Council who, impressed by her work, introduced her to some of his friends who wanted to work with handmade paper from India.

Bagged an order for stationary worth Rs. 7 lakhs and these became her distributors in Germany.





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She decided to start making her own paper and for doing so contacted small producers of handmade paper in a tiny town called Kaalpi in UP.

She decided to work with small producers, family-owned units only.

The biggest challenge was – A woman wanting to enter the male dominated manufacturing industry.





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‘Papeterie’ – A little company’s turnover jumped from Rs. 15 lakhs in two years to Rs. 40 lakhs in fourth year.





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What makes handmade paper so attractive – ‘Eco’ element in it.

These are totally wood-free.

At present, their food packaging range is exclusive in the market under the brand name of Paper Folds.





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Poo Paper

A joke that mounds of elephant dung on roads had ample amount of fiber in it enough to make paper turned into reality.

Some research on this bizarre idea lead to the information that it was executed in some parts of the world like Srilanka, Thailand, Malaysia, etc. as a hobby.

It took them 6-8 months in figuring out the process and they started manufacturing the product and exported it to Germany initially.





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HAATHI CHAAP

A year and half later, she decided to try it in India.

She saw it as a very big challenge under the quirky name of ‘Haathi Chaap’ and desired to see how far can this crazy idea go.

India was finally ready for something different.





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THE ROAD AHEAD They are planning to expand by getting a bigger plant on Delhi-Jaipur

Highway.

‘Paper Tourism’ – to promote the whole experience and not just the logo.

Plans to open pilot projects in villages next to wildlife sanctuaries. Also planning to work with an organization in Udaipur for making paper from camel dung.

8% of Haathi Chaap products profits go to funding the betterment of elephants in Jaipur.





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MAHIMA’s PHILOSPHY

She believes these are the kind of projects which defines the term expanding rather than just selling more.

She likes working with people who share similar views and values. Comfortable margins, transparent and honest system and sense of social responsibility.

She could have done a very cold blooded commercial business and would have grown 4-5 times but it was never an attractive idea.





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She is not a business person.

She has ventured into the badlands of UP in search of small producers of handmade paper. She is one tough lady.

Thus, there she was paving her ways through the male dominated field like manufacturing.

In the end, paper making was an enterprise born out of passion for recycling, for a simple and well lived life.





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THANK YOU

Documents

Mahima Mehra - Haathi Chaap